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Park Hours: Updates and Discussion

Whilst I am no fan of the 4pm closes I can understand that when the park is dead midweek (as it has been over the last couple of weeks) with pretty much walk on rides, that it could be difficult for the park to build a business case to justify increased costs for longer hours.

However there does seem to be a distinction between pretty dead on Tues, Weds & Thurs compared to Mon and Fri which definitely seem to have higher crowds. Take today for example Smiler, Wickerman and Spinball are showing 45 minute queues and CBeebies are also posting 30+ mins on a couple of rides.

This uplift on a Mon/Fri seems pretty consistent and it would be justified from a guest perspective (and to generate more secondary spend revenue) to extend hours to 5pm on these dates.
 
AT86 said:
However there does seem to be a distinction between pretty dead on Tues, Weds & Thurs compared to Mon and Fri which definitely seem to have higher crowds. Take today for example Smiler, Wickerman and Spinball are showing 45 minute queues and CBeebies are also posting 30+ mins on a couple of rides.

This uplift on a Mon/Fri seems pretty consistent and it would be justified from a guest perspective (and to generate more secondary spend revenue) to extend hours to 5pm on these dates.
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They definitely need to extend on weekdays like today tbh. How can they possibly justify 4pm close when wicker man is 45 and the smiler is at capacity (about 70-90 depending on distancing and fastrack). If any queues get to an hour or more on weekdays then it should instantly be a 5pm close
 
4pm closes send traffic into Stoke in the rush hour.
5pm closes would be kinder to the local community as a whole.
 
I know this isn’t the queue times thread, but just to add to my point above regarding Mon/Fri crowds, the park should not be closing at 4pm with queue times like this across the park.

BTused8.jpg
 
AT86 said:
I know this isn’t the queue times thread, but just to add to my point above regarding Mon/Fri crowds, the park should not be closing at 4pm with queue times like this across the park.

BTused8.jpg
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But they've probs spent their budget on 8pm closes at weekends. It would've been better if it was 7pm so the weekdays could be 5pm
 
They are not justifying it, it is because of the budget they are operating with.

It is easy to say "I would take a 7pm close instead of 8pm to have 4pm days put to 5pm". But it is not as simple as that.

Opening the park for an hour extra on a quiet day will cost the park more money than opening the park for an hour extra on a busy day. When operating within the tight budgets they are right now, these things matter.

When more people come through the gate, thus more people buying things inside the park, the cost of that extra hour is somewhat offset by increased revenue for the day. Not so much when the park is quieter.

I would have a guess and say the park do want to open longer on quieter days, but when they are operating close to the budget, it is simply not cost effective or possible to have things both ways.......yet.

Bottom line is this: The "cost" of an extra hour on busier days is cheaper than what it is on quieter days, due to offsets from bigger sales from things such as tickets, food, drinks ect ect. It will cost the park more money to have 7pm closes on peak days and 5pm closes on off peak days, rather than what it is now.
 
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DistortAMG said:
They are not justifying it, it is because of the budget they are operating with.

It is easy to say "I would take a 7pm close instead of 8pm to have 4pm days put to 5pm". But it is not as simple as that.

Opening the park for an hour extra on a quiet day will cost the park more money than opening the park for an hour extra on a busy day. When operating within the tight budgets they are right now, these things matter.

When more people come through the gate, thus more people buying things inside the park, the cost of that extra hour is somewhat offset by increased revenue for the day. Not so much when the park is quieter.

I would have a guess and say the park do want to open longer on quieter days, but when they are operating close to the budget, it is simply not cost effective or possible to have things both ways.......yet.

Bottom line is this: The "cost" of an extra hour on busier days is cheaper than what it is on quieter days, due to offsets from bigger sales from things such as tickets, food, drinks ect ect. It will cost the park more money to have 7pm closes on peak days and 5pm closes on off peak days, rather than what it is now.
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The uk's biggest theme park really should have the budget to be able to open longer on off peak days than 4pm. Even the small parks are open longer so its not acceptable
 
The small parks don't have the same overheads.
The uk's biggest theme park shouldn't have to open extra hours to keep the geeks happy.
Nobody willingly operates at a loss unless they are obliged to by external forces.
 
They need to be really thinking about extending the 10-4, even if just on a Friday - queues are small enough seemingly from Monday-Thursday that it's serviceable but with queues like today a 10-4 is not on.
 
Danscott22 said:
They need to be really thinking about extending the 10-4, even if just on a Friday - queues are small enough seemingly from Monday-Thursday that it's serviceable but with queues like today a 10-4 is not on.
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Agreed, I wouldn't be happy as a day guest paying £34 for 6 hours when I'm queueing an hour for the likes of wicker man and smiler
 
I think the park should have some benchmark to decide if hours should be extended and this benchmark should be widely advertised so guests can have confidence that if the park is busy they will still get their money's worth.
 
Ethan said:
The uk's biggest theme park really should have the budget to be able to open longer on off peak days than 4pm. Even the small parks are open longer so its not acceptable
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I agree. The UK's biggest theme park should still also have a vast array of diverse attractions, flat rides and entertainment offerings. But we are where we are.
 
DistortAMG said:
I agree. The UK's biggest theme park should still also have a vast array of diverse attractions, flat rides and entertainment offerings. But we are where we are.
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Well I'd personally say it has the best offering in the UK but maybe I'm being biased. I think it's got 2 decent dark rides and enough flats including the new ones. However they are only temporary so permanent future investment would be nice in flats. Not bothered about water rides as its rarely the appropriate weather for such rides in this country. If towers are going to have water rides though they need to actually get you wet, unlike rapids which may as well be called lazy river
 
Battle Galleons definitely gets you wet on a nice hot summers day! I say wet, absolutely dripping wet through more like!
 
Ethan said:
Well I'd personally say it has the best offering in the UK but maybe I'm being biased. I think it's got 2 decent dark rides and enough flats including the new ones. However they are only temporary so permanent future investment would be nice in flats. Not bothered about water rides as its rarely the appropriate weather for such rides in this country. If towers are going to have water rides though they need to actually get you wet, unlike rapids which may as well be called lazy river
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My post was more in reference to things we have lost over the years, as you originally said the park should have the budget to open past 4PM.....another thing we have lost. It might still have the best offerings but it is still a shadow of where we were a few decades ago. Where the offerings were massively higher. Anyway, that's a post for another topic.
 
Danscott22 said:
Battle Galleons definitely gets you wet on a nice hot summers day! I say wet, absolutely dripping wet through more like!
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Well exactly it's one extreme to another with the 2 water rides. One gets you too wet and one doesn't get you wet at all. The rapids really need to have the waterfall back on otherwise they may as well not be there
 
rob666 said:
The small parks don't have the same overheads.
The uk's biggest theme park shouldn't have to open extra hours to keep the geeks happy.
Nobody willingly operates at a loss unless they are obliged to by external forces.
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Busch Gardens opens 10am-6pm every off peak day, many with only a few hundred people on park and every ride at 0 minutes. They do not make money on these days, but still offer a reasonable product to guests who have paid to visit and in doing so protect the guest experience and their brand image.
 
I think we should all be thankful that Towers have done 7pm+ closes this early in the season for the first time in a long while. It's certainly a good start! :)
 
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