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Merlin vs. Latter-day Tussauds/DIC

Olivus Prime

Olivus Prime

TS Member
Favourite Ride
Nemesis
To start - this isn't a thread intended to bash either Merlin or DIC for the sake of it. I'm just interested in Towers' (and by extension, Chessington and Thorpe's) history of ownership and operation.

I have seen a few instances in different threads across a couple of discussion boards now of people claiming that Merlin's ownership of Alton Towers is still nowhere near as neglectful as how Tussauds were during their later days (particularly under DIC's ownership), which brought a period of almost no investment or interest in the guest experience.

But looking back at closed season archives, there seemed to be a comparable amount of work being done on the park at the time as there is now, if not more. The 2004 closed season in particular saw complete repaints of both Oblivion and Nemesis' stations, the latter of which had to be spread over three years under Merlin's management (though admittedly with better results).

For those who have been familiar with/visiting the park since Tussauds' ownership (I only first visited in 2009), can you explain your thoughts on how the park was being managed/operated by the end of their ownership? And do you think things are better or worse now?
 
I would say Merlins capital investment is better than DIC (take Rita vs Wickerman as an example).

But the operating and upkeep budgets from Merlin of late are worse than anything from DIC.
 
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I can imagine this being a classic horrendous topic! :p

Olivus Prime said:
But looking back at closed season archives, there seemed to be a comparable amount of work being done on the park at the time as there is now, if not more. The 2004 closed season in particular saw complete repaints of both Oblivion and Nemesis' stations, the latter of which had to be spread over three years under Merlin's management (though admittedly with better results).
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I think the absolute nadir of the UK theme park industry was when Tussauds was owned by Dubai Investment Capital, who had no clue how to operate theme parks. Chessington got hit the worst because it couldn't expand.

Merlin have a much better business and investment model than DIC. Tussauds was owned by investment bankers since 1998, when gradually things went downhill, but the 2ish years with DIC were markedly worse.

However, people may be surprised by how individually the parks can still be run, even though they're extremely restricted by the budgets from above. So the scope of winter maintenance might not be the best way to measure how well the theme parks are run by the parent company, since that is largely co-ordinated by the parks themselves.

I know people who've worked in parks over winter and done so myself in the past - a huge amount of work goes on every year, it's only really the painting and obvious stuff that really gets noticed/promoted. Whether it's done to the best quality though is another thing! And it's only recently that its been branded online as TLC.

The previous Nemesis repaints were extremely shoddy really, probably done by winter workers with a few pots of white and red paint. Not a proper scenic job like Alton Towers did recently, which is a totally different process and probably paid for by spreading small budgets over yearly phases (so worthwile, wish more UK parks would take note of the difference that quality makes!)

From anybody I've spoken to, the general picture seems to be that Merlin are now much more controlling on almost every factor and looking to cut costs at all opportunities. They may think this is a good way of satisfying shareholders in the short run, but it's been the case many times before that this will lead to a bad place eventually. Arguably, this has already happened with Merlin's resort theme parks, and now they are trying to cut costs even more to reverse their fortunes, just like Tussauds were in the 2000s. Their Legoland parks and midways are a very different story, however.

Tussauds under DIC was also a far smaller company than Merlin is now, the company's economy of scale plays a big part, when theme parks require high capital expenditure for relatively little return on that investment. DIC (and RMC when they ran Thorpe Park) were only interested in low investment to send profits on a constant upwards trajectory, like a more conventional business model - this failed!

Merlin also have strong roots in the entrepreneurial 90s era of Tussauds and the folk at the top would probably like to think they've carried on that ethos (it was completely lost under DIC Tussauds), but being such a bigger, more complex and marketing-driven company now, it doesn't manifest the same way. Rides are developed very differently now to how Tussauds did under Pearsons.

The most unfortunate thing to ever happen to the company was when Pearsons decided, after investing so successfully in the leisure industry and allowing great stuff to happen, to flog the company if it didn't reach pretty unattainable targets. They sold it, and it began the decline, which eventually led to Merlin as we know it today. Peaks and troughs.
 
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DIC only owned the park for a touch over two years,
Olivus Prime said:
To start - this isn't a thread intended to bash either Merlin or DIC for the sake of it. I'm just interested in Towers' (and by extension, Chessington and Thorpe's) history of ownership and operation.

I have seen a few instances in different threads across a couple of discussion boards now of people claiming that Merlin's ownership of Alton Towers is still nowhere near as neglectful as how Tussauds were during their later days (particularly under DIC's ownership), which brought a period of almost no investment or interest in the guest experience.

But looking back at closed season archives, there seemed to be a comparable amount of work being done on the park at the time as there is now, if not more. The 2004 closed season in particular saw complete repaints of both Oblivion and Nemesis' stations, the latter of which had to be spread over three years under Merlin's management (though admittedly with better results).

For those who have been familiar with/visiting the park since Tussauds' ownership (I only first visited in 2009), can you explain your thoughts on how the park was being managed/operated by the end of their ownership? And do you think things are better or worse now?
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DIC didn't buy Tussauds until 2005 (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2005/mar/24/3), so the 2004 closed season had nothing to do with them.

To be honest, I don't really think DIC owned the Tussauds operation long enough to discern their impact on the parks at all. 2007 was always going to be relatively light years investment-wise since Air, Spinball Whizzer and Rita had gone in over 3 of the previous 5 years, with Charlie costing a ridiculous amount the year before.

The later Charterhouse years were pretty poor though. In 2004 in particular the park opened with several SBNO rides and at least one replaced with a pay-to-play attraction. Spinball Whizzer was frankly a bizarre investment, presumably the result of some kind of deal with Maurer-Sohne when they went to buy Chessington's spinner.

Rita ruined Ug Land completely. From what I gather it came about because the new management didn't like whatever it was that had been planned for Cred Street in 2005, so they essentially borrowed all the theming assets which had already been prepared for Stealth and plonked them in, even though they were completely incompatible with what existed.

Air was the last real quality addition to the park - it also marks a crossover where budgets started to be cut with visible consequences. The golden era ended completely when Ralph Armond left the park in 2004. Within weeks of him leaving, the free Fastrack (which under his leadership had just been expanded to include The Flume and Black Hole that season) was stopped and replaced with a paid-for system. Alton Towers was no longer Where The Magic Never Ends.
 
I had far less fun at the park during the DIC days than I do these days. They were dark days, but as @WillPS said, they were very brief.

There's very little DIC can hold to their 'credit' in terms of additions given how the the planning cycle works.

@electricBill I am not sure I agree with all your points, but there's some truth in what you say. It's worth noting that DIC bought Tussauds and operated as they saw fit but Merlin bought Tussauds and amalgamated the properties into their wider group and operate the properties very differently.
 
He was the Divisional Director at Alton Towers between 1995 and 2004.

:)
 
He was also the marketing director for Chessington from the early 90s to 1995.
There was also Tussauds CEO Mike Jolly (previously the group marketing director) who was in position from 1992 to 2000, left after the company's transition to Charterhouse, along with John Wardley (a park development director at the time) and I think many others.
 
AT86 said:
I would say Merlins capitals investment is better than DIC (take Rita vs Wickerman as an example).

But the operating and upkeep budgets from Merlin of late are worse than anything from DIC.
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Mostly agree with this actually, although I would merge the charterhouse period with the DIC era.

In terms of how the park currently operates, I can't see how anyone can conclude that the park isn't currently experiencing a new low the likes of which it has never seen before. Add that to the years of neglect taking its toll both under present and past ownership, you could conclude that the park has never been as bad as it has been under Merlin.

However it's completely fair to say that Merlin have indeed made far better capital investments than the late Charterhouse/DIC era. Even if some of them such as DBGT at Thorpe and Sub Terra haven't paid off, at least they have shown imagination, creativity, originality and a genuine attempt to improve the parks.

Early Merlin was quite commendable as well I think.

I think incompetence, and now as a result of said incompetence - fiscal reasons are what hold Merlin back, whereas in the era before them the park was intented to be a simple cash cow.
 
matthewgcole said:
Even if some of them such as DBGT at Thorpe and Sub Terra haven't paid off, at least they have shown imagination, creativity, originality and a genuine attempt to improve the parks.
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I agree with everything you say perhaps except this. Merlin certainly show a will to be creative but systematically miss opportunities and favour odd choices (over reliance on actors, no thought for long term maintenance/operational cost, poor quality installs). Merlin put huge obstacles in place for real originality and improvement, with their very stringest one-size-fits-all marketing policies.

There may be a genuine will within the company at some level to be creative and they have some passionate people in there, but they're trapped in a company culture that doesn't allow for the best results, hence mind boggling decisions like DBGT, choosing cheapest contractors over best value contractors, and rarely learning from mistakes. When things do go wrong with developments, Merlin always find a way to blame somebody else.
 
electricBill said:
I agree with everything you say perhaps except this. Merlin certainly show a will to be creative but systematically miss opportunities and favour odd choices (over reliance on actors, no thought for long term maintenance/operational cost, poor quality installs). Merlin put huge obstacles in place for real originality and improvement, with their very stringest one-size-fits-all marketing policies.

There may be a genuine will within the company at some level to be creative and they have some passionate people in there, but they're trapped in a company culture that doesn't allow for the best results, hence mind boggling decisions like DBGT, choosing cheapest contractors over best value contractors, and rarely learning from mistakes. When things do go wrong with developments, Merlin always find a way to blame somebody else.
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That's why I said incompetence. You can't really argue against what they tried to achieve with either project, but the planning, organisation, implementation and even the business case is generally what's wrong with Merlin's projects rather than the intention.

From being on the outside, it looks like a company where the arse and the elbow don't communicate well. This could be the result of it still being a relatively new company. I would imagine this is the reason behind the awful operational budgets the park gets dealt every season as the business case for them is easy to draw up on a spreadsheet in an office in Poole but very different at the coal face in Staffordshire.

I think Merlin is a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth and dragging the RTP's in opposing directions all the time. I would imagine that the DIC/late Charterhouse era was more of a "we're installing an Intamin Launch coaster that we snapped up for a good price in the middle of your park next week by the way" kind of culture.
 
I think DBGT is perhaps emblematic of everything that is wrong with Merlin's current creative and investment process. It was a hugely ambitious project that started out with the absolute best of intentions and many dedicated people on board (Derren included), but went off it's proverbial rails before long, thanks to Merlin's creatively demeaning USP driven marketing approach, but also, a clear misunderstanding of their own talent. The ride/experience was designed to play on Merlin's success within the Midway market (actors, IP, bespoke theming, high-concept), but dropped into the middle of a teenager-oriented theme park. Ultimately, this didn't work, resulting in one of the most expensive noble failures in theme park history. They have expanded much more rapidly than any otheir leisure company, and as such, have often lost track of context. @matthewgcole nailed it when he observed that too many cooks have spoiled the broth.

For reference, and while I am willing to see how 2018 plays out, that infamous 2004 season at Alton Towers was more miserable than anything we've seen in the past year or two. The park was half-shuttered by the end of the season, Scarefest was unceremoniously cancelled and park operations were downhill in a way they haven't been before or since. Then, 2005 began with a sense that the park had changed direction entirely, typified by this bizarre Rita advert, which was hastily removed from broadcast and re-shot.
 
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Matt N said:
Out of interest, what's so bizarre about that advert? Admittedly, it is far inferior to the 1990s adverts and the modern day adverts, but I can't see anything overly weird about it myself. Maybe I'm just weird.
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When you compare it to pretty much every other Alton Towers advert created ever... it's a very un-Alton Towers advert.

I remember at the time thinking it was an advert for Extra mints, then had a 'what the hell' moment on the Rita reveal.

Much like the ride it stands out like a sore thumb compared to everything else created by Towers.

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You'd think the mountaineering would provide some good memories too. I mean, at least before the whole freezing to death business.
 
Forgot about that advert. It really was unbelievably poor, like something the sort of massively wide-of-the-mark stuff you see on The Apprentice. The brief 'product shot' visually tells you absolutely nothing about the ride, other than it is a ride.
 
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I personally think that this Rita advert is better:

The mountaineering advert... I get what they were going for, but it's just a bit iffy when compared to some of Alton Towers' great adverts from the past and again during the 2010s.
 
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