Oakwood Discussion

[dantheman38]

£702k profit in a year for a theme park to me sounds very low. Is it?

I’d be interested to see profit made by other parks of a similar size.

I'm actually quite surprised it's that's high. It's very simplistic, but an annual profit of £702k (assuming financing costs have been already been deducted) would amount to a 10% per annum return on a £7m investment for example. I can't see how the owners have invested £7m over the last few years, so it's a decent annual return.

Admittedly that's offset by a loss in the last year of accounts, but if they've treated the expenditure on Megafobia (which was c.£2m) as a cost then that explains why that's the case with the hope the investment in Megafobi generates a return from higher attendance in future years.

 

[James]

2023 – Loss of £2.2 million
2022 – Profit £702,000
2021 – Profit £1.4 million
2020 – Loss of £783,000
2019 – Loss of £732,000
2018 – Profit £333,000
2017 – Profit £274,000
2016 – Loss of £587,000
2015 – Loss of £99,000
2014 – Profit £336,000
2013 – Profit £598,000

Looking over the last decade, 2023 would mark the highest loss during this period. I doubt 2024 will be any prettier, given recent media coverage and the theme park industry struggling this year.

I feel Oakwood will likely eventually follow in the footsteps of LWV, get rid of the thrill rides over the years, and reposition itself as a park aimed at younger families. I still think they will plod along for a while, though.

 

[Relife]

2023 – Loss of £2.2 million
2022 – Profit £702,000
2021 – Profit £1.4 million
2020 – Loss of £783,000
2019 – Loss of £732,000
2018 – Profit £333,000
2017 – Profit £274,000
2016 – Loss of £587,000
2015 – Loss of £99,000
2014 – Profit £336,000
2013 – Profit £598,000

Looking over the last decade, 2023 would mark the highest loss during this period. I doubt 2024 will be any prettier, given recent media coverage and the theme park industry struggling this year.

I feel Oakwood will likely eventually follow in the footsteps of LWV, get rid of the thrill rides over the years, and reposition itself as a park aimed at younger families. I still think they will plod along for a while, though.

Nobody is going to trek to Oakwood for kiddie rides. It would be the end of the park.

 

[James]

It's in a popular tourist area; they don't need to advertise nationally and simply concentrate on tourism through Pembrokeshire. I'm suggesting they cut out the high-cost thrill rides and reposition themselves as a family park, with lower operating costs.

 

[MaxPower]

Link it in with Bluestone and have zip lines, rope courses and segway trails. Turn it into a zip world essentially.

Make it free to enter, get rid of Bounce and all the other rubbish and make the decent stuff pay per ride.

 

[Tom]

What is interesting is their gate price has also shot up in the last year. It is a travel-too park where you commit to make the trek rather than pop in. Believe they are transitioning to seeing how much those people are prepared to pay to experience a couple of unique and impressive rides.

 

[JamesP]

Aspro seem to have a model of running their parks as cheaply as possible with little new ride investment. Some of what they did I can see makes sense given the parks location - pre aspro every night in August had after dark and rides were fairly heavily staffed (though some of those have gone a bit far the other way). It seems to be a model that works to an extent, but the problem is reputational damage from low investment meaning lower numbers and having to raise charges to compensate. There is often talk of it being a difficult location, which it is, but I holiday in that area a lot and other places receive a lot of guests in the holiday season. Oakwood attracted 500,000 in 1996, but I’d bet it’s a fraction of that now. The people are there (Folly Farm down the road gets that kind of attendance now), there just needs to be the reason to keep visiting.

 

[jon81uk]

What is interesting is their gate price has also shot up in the last year. It is a travel-too park where you commit to make the trek rather than pop in. Believe they are transitioning to seeing how much those people are prepared to pay to experience a couple of unique and impressive rides.

It didn't used to be a travel-to park. It was more, my family is on holiday in Pembrokeshire, what is there to do in the local area that isn't the beach. Same as all the smaller parks in Cornwall and Blackgang Chine on the Isle of Wight. I think they tried to change to somewhere worth travelling to with the installation of Megafobia, but everything they did since wasn't great (or has had safety issues). Drenched is a bit too off the shelf and too much of a soaker for a small park, but not unique enough to draw people from further afield.
If they were more centrally located then Megafobia could have done what Pirates Adventure and Shockwave did for Drayton Manor. But due to the location Oakwood would have been better off being a local park for those already holidaying in the area. Other factor of course is that with the rise of cheap flights to Spain, fewer people are taking holidays in the UK.

 

[Enter Valhalla]

Has anyone visited this year’s After Dark event this year yet?

Oakwood are showing videos on their socials, and it looks extremely quiet around the stage. That area used to be packed out on late nights. Has it been much quieter this year?

 

[IDB]

Has anyone visited this year’s After Dark event this year yet?

Oakwood are showing videos on their socials, and it looks extremely quiet around the stage. That area used to be packed out on late nights. Has it been much quieter this year?

Visited last weekend and the park was pretty quiet.

The weather in the morning started off miserable, so that would have put plenty of people off. It did improve into a nice warm day and plenty of local teenagers started to arrive later in the afternoon. Although this didn’t really affect queue times as they were more interested in throwing UV paint over each other. At £5 a bag this is where they were making their profit for the day.

Thought the evening entertainment and firework finale were really good.

 

[Alix]

Went yesterday for our first trip. Used the Tesco vouchers again (as we did for PWH) but the last minute price increase caught me out so I ended up having to pay an extra £20 real money.

Park was quiet, disturbingly so for a sunny Thursday in the summer holidays. We got all the creds fairly quickly, wandered about and did some of the other rides, but were pretty much done by 1pm. After driving over 2 hours to get there I didn’t want to bail so early so we ended up re riding megaphobia 10 times getting off, walking round and getting back on again. That is the best thing there, by miles.

Vegan options were non existent save for soya milk for tea which is a bit disappointing - most places do a vegan magnum at least these days.

For a day out it was fine, I’d be upset if I’d paid the full £96!

@Chimpy atted as requested

 

[NuttySquirrel]

Went yesterday for our first trip. Used the Tesco vouchers again (as we did for PWH) but the last minute price increase caught me out so I ended up having to pay an extra £20 real money.

Park was quiet, disturbingly so for a sunny Thursday in the summer holidays. We got all the creds fairly quickly, wandered about and did some of the other rides, but were pretty much done by 1pm. After driving over 2 hours to get there I didn’t want to bail so early so we ended up re riding megaphobia 10 times getting off, walking round and getting back on again. That is the best thing there, by miles.

Vegan options were non existent save for soya milk for tea which is a bit disappointing - most places do a vegan magnum at least these days.

For a day out it was fine, I’d be upset if I’d paid the full £96!

@Chimpy atted as requested

Ah but the big question is: did you do Waterfall?

 

[Alix]

Ah but the big question is: did you do Waterfall?

Nope. I don’t like getting wet and if thats what I think it is I can’t understand why anyone would do that abomination!