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Park Closing Time

Lottie. said:
Maybe they got the hint? :p
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Would've been better if they'd got the hint a month ago, and applied it on every single day rather than two days.
 
I was going to say, is it not a bit late now, considering the holidays are almost over? :p

Better than nothing though. :D
 
I wonder what's brought this on so late in the season? Presumably online sales for this weekend must be through the roof.
 
By the look of ride times the past few days, it looks like the park has been very busy, so I imagine they are expecting a busy weekend, especially if its nice weather and with it being the last proper weekend before kids go back to school. Its just a shame it's for one weekend and not all month when it would have been welcomed!
 
Excellent! Stirring stuff!

This is exactly what a serious theme park should be doing, not feebly closing early in the summer.

I would have attended just to actually visualise '7:00pm' on the boards... but sadly, I am at Oakwood on Saturday.

Which closes at 10pm.

Still, 7pm - well done Towers!

:D
 
This is just a response to some very busy days being forecast. They'd be open at 7pm every night if the accountants decided it was viable. The sort of "well done you've finally seen sense" sort of response is not entirely warranted.
 
The issue as I see it is Towers don't have a robust management system to adapt to changes. There is no point blanket opening late during summer as the park was dead for the 1st two weeks. But when guest numbers increased no one was clearly saying.... "Open later".

My experience of Towers decision making is nothing happens very fast, mainly because decisions have to go through too many people.
 
Tom said:
This is just a response to some very busy days being forecast. They'd be open at 7pm every night if the accountants decided it was viable. The sort of "well done you've finally seen sense" sort of response is not entirely warranted.
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But we've already had very busy days this summer and they've done nothing - or possibly a 30 minute extension at best. I can't imagine these days are much busier than it already has been?


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Could the park closing times be a factor of buttering up the local council?????? The roads around the park (especially if you are going to the m1 North) are horrendous at rush hour. I know people will jump on my back for asking this. But it could be a case, all be it a small one.
 
Slugjc said:
Could the park closing times be a factor of buttering up the local council?????? The roads around the park (especially if you are going to the m1 North) are horrendous at rush hour. I know people will jump on my back for asking this. But it could be a case, all be it a small one.
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I think this could be somthing to do with it, I know Thorpe have planning permission to have rides open till 11:30pm Monday to Saturday and 11:00pm on Sundays (i think thats right!). I wouldn't be at all surprised if Alton have somthing like this, possibly with earlier hours too because of the locals / roads etc.
 
After visiting yesterday I can honestly say even though it is only an extra hour, the 7pm ride close makes such a difference.

Most days I feel like I have to race around the park trying to cram in all the rides in case we don't have enough time. Yesterday was one of my nicest time's at the park because we felt we could just stroll around the park at our own pace, relax on the lawns for a while & even try out smaller rides I've skipped for many years or not been on at all. We were there 9-7 which gave us a further extra than most guests so this did work for us as well.

As a result of this we spent more - we spent money on lunch AND dinner as well as drinks and snacks for sitting on the lawns and relaxing.
We certainly weren't the only guests doing this.

I hope they have seen an increase in satisfaction and guest spending this weekend so they can seriously look into their hours.
 
Yesterday was a very busy day on park, I turned up about 2.30 and express was full, and using some of the coach park. The coach park was full and using the overflow. and all the main car parks were full, And by the time we left car parks J and K were used (the field next to ATH), and car park M was prepared for parking, as it had its exit layed out with signs (plus the cows were all gone :p).

We left about 6.30ish and all the car parks were still pretty full, so clearly people will stay if the time is later!
 
Oakwood set an example in very little. But they do in the summer.

Their summer after dark event shows that if there's a good enough reason - people will stay.

The park was open till 10pm, with a laser/music/firework show at 9.45pm. There was also live music from 7-9.30pm.

Food outlets were busy. Rides remained with queues.

Alton should learn from this. Perhaps for 2014, develop a medium scale laser/music/projections show, get some live music in and have late closes on selected days.

With advertising, it would work.

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The atmosphere at Oakwood last night was amazing. Chugging up 'Phobia's lift hill in the dark, singing along to a pretty good covers band playing Mr Brightside was a great moment.
 
I agree.

Obviously Fireworks can't happen in the summer as they are only allowed 3 shows a year but some other entertainment should work.

For me the key thing is they need to be adaptive, just saying "summer holidays will be late" won't work as the first 2 weeks where quiet and week 3 was medium. Thorpes summer nights proved that doing a late event won't always pull in the crowds but clearly the last 2 weeks of summer is where guests are coming.

AT management is slow to adapt though that it took them 3/4 of those 2 weeks to realise!!
 
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