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Paultons Park: General Discussion

Looks great. Quite depressing really that a minor park has created this new area - two new coasters, excellent theming, good quality rides for the target audience - when the UK's best is giving us major closures and poor upkeep of themed areas (prove me wrong merlin, please). Hope they don't go the same way as Drayton, and keep investing in attractions for any member of the family (would go out of my way to visit if they added one or two decent thrill or thrill/family rides, but at the moment there's not quite enough to justify the journey).
 
It's about appealing to a wide variety though, with Merlin dominating London there's very little South of London, if anything. With Paramount sniffing around, a good high thrill ride or two wouldn't go a miss to bring in a diverse mix of guests.
 
Oh, absolutely. Unfortunately Merlin have convinced the UK population that a park can only be "thrill" or "kiddy" (Gullivers and their "all adults are kiddy fiddlers" policy certainly doesn't help!) The time is right for a park to come along and remind people that it is possible to please everyone.
 
There are still Parks that do that though - Alton, Mandy, Drayton & Mingo all cater well to both thrill and family.
 
Other than Alton (which is struggling this year to speak to families), and pleasure beach, non of them are major parks with major investments. Drayton hasn't tried to invest in the thrill category in years, and last time they did they failed miserably.

Still though, this could only be the start of a great few years for paultons. A family area now, thrill in a few years maybe, and this will be a major competitor with even merlin parks.
 
Stunning investment from Paultons, definitely better than anything Chessington are doing at the moment!

Regarding appealing to everyone, Blackpool Pleasure Beach does it very well, as did Alton Towers until they closed all but a few of their family rides!
 
I actually find it hard to imagine why any Park would want to go for the thrill market actually. It's no surprise to me that not many parks attempt it.

Firstly you have the return on investment risk. Thrill coasters cost many millions and appeal to a smaller demographic than families. So you have to do it properly (a large number of quality and expensive thrill rides) or not bother. Then you have the worry of the amount of land they take up, plus the very anti roller coaster planning restrictions of UK authorities to deal with.

It would be suicide for a park like Paultons to borrow £100million to start investing in thrill coasters sadly. Possibly Drayton could do it as a step up from their existing lineup but then as a family run business it is always a risky investment.

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matthewgcole said:
I actually find it hard to imagine why any Park would want to go for the thrill market actually. It's no surprise to me that not many parks attempt it.

Firstly you have the return on investment risk. Thrill coasters cost many millions and appeal to a smaller demographic than families. So you have to do it properly (a large number of quality and expensive thrill rides) or not bother. Then you have the worry of the amount of land they take up, plus the very anti roller coaster planning restrictions of UK authorities to deal with.

It would be suicide for a park like Paultons to borrow £100million to start investing in thrill coasters sadly. Possibly Drayton could do it as a step up from their existing lineup but then as a family run business it is always a risky investment.

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While I fully agree with you that it would be a massive risk not worth a park like paultons taking, I think maybe an area aimed at older people would work well for the park. I'm not suggesting spending millions on coasters that would only appeal to a small number of regular visitors, but more like forbidden Kingdom at Chessington - an area aimed at older people in a park mainly focused on families. It might not be a massive area, but at least it gives braver people the chance to try some more thrilling rides. There are also some resonant thrilling flats which I'm sure would be great addition, especially ones with a low height restriction just to appeal to that audience of slightly older children.

Of course though, could be a risk , so hopefully the next few years are good for the park, allowing them to try the slightly more risky investments
 
Paultons doesn't need a massive 250FT B&M (although I wouldn't say no :p). It just needs something from a company they know they can afford. Something like a Gerstauler will be decent. Alternatively they can build a wooden coaster or something like Alpina Blitz (the latter has a 1.3 height restriction), which are known for being brilliant if done correctly.
 
matthewgcole said:
It would be suicide for a park like Paultons to borrow £100million to start investing in thrill coasters sadly.
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Don't think it would cost that much. ;)

If a small park ever went for the thrill market, they don't necessarily need a huge custom designed B&M coaster... They could go with a cheaper manufacturer, and even go with an off the shelf design. It doesn't need to be anything on the scale of what you would see at a place like Towers. Speed at Oakwood comes to mind, it's quite the crowd pleaser and cost £3 million (although I'm unsure how much the park benefited from that investment).

I think thrill coasters can fit within these parks. It brings in families with slightly older children, and draws in families that have young and older children. You often find kids that just break the 1.4m height restriction at a place like Towers rushing to ride Nemesis... thrill doesn't always mean ride aimed at a single 16-20 year olds and above. It can fit a wide age range and families often fit within this.

These parks stay with the (young) family market because it's the easy way out. Although the whole UK industry has become like that, even though Merlin are the big dogs they still stay very safe (in the form of lots of market research before investing in anything). It's a shame no ones a risk taker these days.
 
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I would question how thrilling a 30 second long mini Gerstlauer would be and thus wouldn't be a good return on investment. When you have Thorpe a couple of hours away, I would rather spend the day at Paultons with the kids having a good family day out and go on some proper coasters when They're not with me rather than compromise.

I suppose Leahs point of installing some flats to create a future thrill market alongside and could support a major coaster investment has some merit. However I know a park that we all know very well in far greater need of some thrilling flats......

It would be great if we did have someone willing to take a risk and build some industry leading coasters (and build that aforementioned 250ft b&m!) but that kind of investment would need to be on a new park and not an existing one. It would need to be on a brownfield site or wasteland, probably in a deprived area with high unemployment so that planning authorities could argue that 300ft tall noisy coasters improve the area, the local economy and provide jobs. No chance of any chance of that in the Churnet Valley conservation area, Leafy suburban Surrey or the Paltons estate in Hampshire.

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I'm happy for Paultons are doing well with what they have here, it does give me hope that it is good stimulation for other smaller parks that they can do better than Merlin, and if Paultons can build on this (pun intended!), who knows what they'll be able to pull off next.
 
It's difficult to move in to the thrill market. Say Paultons did open a B&M or something, as impressed as people will be, most people will look at the rest of the park and conclude it's not worth it, and stick to going Alton and Thorpe which they know and have much more to offer.

And even the big parks aren't safe really, look at how badly The Swarm did at Thorpe. Who'd have thought a giant B&M wingrider and only the 2nd of its kind would tank at probably the 2nd/3rd best known park in the country?
 
Hi guys, I went to the press event yesterday for Lost Kingdom and have to say I was REALLY impressed! The land is well thought out, the rides are good fun and it looks spectacular! I really think they have hit the nail on the head as far as target market goes. I have a fair few photos on my Flickr if you wanted to check them out; https://www.flickr.com/photos/themeparkmania/

Lost Kingdom Paultons Park by ThemeParkMedia, on Flickr

Lost Kingdom Paultons Park by ThemeParkMedia, on Flickr

Lost Kingdom Paultons Park by ThemeParkMedia, on Flickr
 
It looks great, thanks for the pics. It's so good to see this kind of effort put into building a new land in a smaller theme park in the uk. If paultons keep going at this rate, it will be one of the top parks over here.
They look if they have done their research and looked at some of the simelar parks in Europe, going for good quality all round. Rides, theming and atmosphere etc.
 
shawnoc said:
It looks great, thanks for the pics. It's so good to see this kind of effort put into building a new land in a smaller theme park in the uk. If paultons keep going at this rate, it will be one of the top parks over here.
They look if they have done their research and looked at some of the simelar parks in Europe, going for good quality all round. Rides, theming and atmosphere etc.
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I have to agree, I would go as far as saying its one of the best themed lands in the UK, just down to it being so imersive. I do think that if this is the product that Paultons Park are not implementing, it wont be too long before they are rivals to major family attractions such as Legoland and Chessington, and I think this will help to put them on the map even further!
 
With the great weather in the background, I have to say that it looks very impressive. It actually looks like it's in another country! This is definitely a game changer for Paltons. Anyone know how much the theming and the coasters cost altogether?

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matthewgcole said:
With the great weather in the background, I have to say that it looks very impressive. It actually looks like it's in another country! This is definitely a game changer for Paltons. Anyone know how much the theming and the coasters cost altogether?

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It states in my presspack that it was a total cost of £9 million
 
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