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Paultons Park: General Discussion

Hid said:
Paultons has only in the last 17 years gained its reputation.

Alton, Chessington, Drayton, Thorpe and Pleasure Beach have been established a lot longer than Paultons so they will of course be busier
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17 years is a long time!

It's about relative popularity so there is the discrepancy of the Merlin parks queue times being multiple times longer than the past weekend and Paulton's not despite the great weather across most of the country.

Are 4 times as many people visiting Merlin parks today than at the weekend due to the weather and not the same at Paultons?
 
Dave said:
I get why people grab onto Paultons because it’s the rare beast of a UK park that cares about the product but people talk about it like it’s a major UK national park when it is still ultimately a small regional affair.
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Paultons was more accurately smaller and regional 10-20 years ago, but not so small and regional now, even if Merlin as a company still dwarfs it nationally or globally, and this latest YT vid is almost like a sarcastic attack ad on Merlin's parks:

 
Bowser said:
It's about relative popularity so there is the discrepancy of the Merlin parks queue times being multiple times longer than the past weekend and Paulton's not despite the great weather across most of the country.

Are 4 times as many people visiting Merlin parks today than at the weekend due to the weather and not the same at Paultons?
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Quite probably. You're presuming that good weather creates a uniform surge in demand across all parks. It doesn't.

The demographic profile of a Merlin guest (teens, young adults and, crucially, a massive pool of annual pass holders) is far more prone to spontaneous, weather driven surge visits. If you're 19 and the sun is out on Easter Tuesday, you grab your mates and head to Thorpe Park. Conversely, Paultons Parks’ core audience (families with toddlers and young children) rarely operates on a whim. Those trips are planned, budgeted and booked weeks in advance. Paultons Park doesn't see the same weather spike because their guests aren't as mobile or spontaneous.

A 20 minute peak queue on one of the busiest Tuesdays of the year also isn't evidence of superior operations. It’s evidence that the demand simply isn't high enough to saturate the infrastructure.
 
Dave said:
It’s why I suspect despite what people say, Paultons isn’t trying to go after Merlin.
If they are then they are currently making huge strategic errors on ride capacity, and they don’t seem the type of company to make those types of errors.
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Paultons aren’t trying to compete with Merlin per se. As in they know that they can’t achieve the high numbers that Merlin gets even if they wanted to, so they have understandably decided to go down a different route and are looking to peruse quality of experience over quantity of visitors.

What is however very clear is that Paultons clearly look at what Merlin do, and in many cases try to do the opposite. I have no doubt at all that Paultons regularly look on Merlin’s TripAdvisor pages, see what people moan about the most, and then do the opposite (and often make a big deal about how they do the opposite)

For example, you’ll often hear Paultons shouting about how they have free parking, and of course the big one- when they say “you don’t need fastrack here, our queues are short”. They’ve clearly seen that they can capitalise on peoples’ annoyance at long, slow moving queues at the Merlin parks and know that they have a niche over Merlin and are happy to exploit that niche. Right now, Paultons would hate to get the sort of numbers that Merlin are getting, they wouldn’t be able to cope. But I bet a lot of the people who visited the park today, left saying how great it was that there were no long queues.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Paultons aren’t trying to compete with Merlin per se. As in they know that they can’t achieve the high numbers that Merlin gets even if they wanted to, so they have understandably decided to go down a different route and are looking to peruse quality of experience over quantity of visitors.

What is however very clear is that Paultons clearly look at what Merlin do, and in many cases try to do the opposite. I have no doubt at all that Paultons regularly look on Merlin’s TripAdvisor pages, see what people moan about the most, and then do the opposite (and often make a big deal about how they do the opposite)

For example, you’ll often hear Paultons shouting about how they have free parking, and of course the big one- when they say “you don’t need fastrack here, our queues are short”. They’ve clearly seen that they can capitalise on peoples’ annoyance at long, slow moving queues at the Merlin parks and know that they have a niche over Merlin and are happy to exploit that niche. Right now, Paultons would hate to get the sort of numbers that Merlin are getting, they wouldn’t be able to cope. But I bet a lot of the people who visited the park today, left saying how great it was that there were no long queues.
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That was my whole point, they are not playing for “UK number 1” park vibe, if they where then their ride choices are going to bite them on the behind at some point.

TedShatner10 said:
Paultons was more accurately smaller and regional 10-20 years ago, but not so small and regional now, even if Merlin as a company still dwarfs it nationally or globally, and this latest YT vid is almost like a sarcastic attack ad on Merlin's parks:

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I come back to the point that those who think Paultons anything other than a regional park have a very south-eastern idea of what the UK constitutes.

People north of the Watford gap have limited exposure to the existence of Paultons.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Paultons aren’t trying to compete with Merlin per se. As in they know that they can’t achieve the high numbers that Merlin gets even if they wanted to, so they have understandably decided to go down a different route and are looking to peruse quality of experience over quantity of visitors.

What is however very clear is that Paultons clearly look at what Merlin do, and in many cases try to do the opposite. I have no doubt at all that Paultons regularly look on Merlin’s TripAdvisor pages, see what people moan about the most, and then do the opposite (and often make a big deal about how they do the opposite)

For example, you’ll often hear Paultons shouting about how they have free parking, and of course the big one- when they say “you don’t need fastrack here, our queues are short”. They’ve clearly seen that they can capitalise on peoples’ annoyance at long, slow moving queues at the Merlin parks and know that they have a niche over Merlin and are happy to exploit that niche. Right now, Paultons would hate to get the sort of numbers that Merlin are getting, they wouldn’t be able to cope. But I bet a lot of the people who visited the park today, left saying how great it was that there were no long queues.
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I’m not so sure

They’re recent social media post highlighted

Free parking
Low queues
Regular events
Decent food (including not needing sandwiches at a theme park)
Shows
Meet and greet characters
Themed lands

It was absolute antithesis of Merlin.

Drayton as well with events and the lake show. What can we do what other parks aren’t. And they’re making a great go of it.

Different price bracket to Paultons but still have a plan and fair play to them. Much better than the pretenders in Alton.
 
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Ash said:
I’m not so sure

They’re recent social media post highlighted

Free parking
Low queues
Regular events
Decent food (including not needing sandwiches at a theme park)
Shows
Meet and greet characters
Themed lands

It was absolute antithesis of anti Merlin.

Drayton as well with events and the lake show. What can we do what other parks aren’t. And they’re making a great go of it.

Different price bracket to Paultons but still have a plan and fair play to them. Much better than the pretenders in Alton.
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Yeah this is what I meant really. Paultons are clearly looking closely at what Merlin are doing, but rather than trying to beat them at everything, Paultons are thinking “what do Merlin do badly? That can be our niche”

In the past, other UK parks have sort of looked up to Merlin as the big boys and tried to be like them. This was never going to work because Merlin are too big to compete with. The Paultons approach of trying to be unlike Merlin works much better, particularly at a time when people are becoming increasingly disillusioned with how Merlin run their parks.
 
It’s quite common for smaller businesses to look at the big players and find something the big player doesn’t do to tap into.

It’s not like your local Italian is competing with Bella Italia and they will push what makes them unique from the big chains.

Same here.
 
Dave said:
I come back to the point that those who think Paultons anything other than a regional park have a very south-eastern idea of what the UK constitutes.

People north of the Watford gap have limited exposure to the existence of Paultons.
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To be fair, until recent years well after COVID, I didn't realise Paultons Park had all the more broader themed areas rapidly expanding outside of the Peppa Pig area (but that national perception may be slowly shifting in the past 12 to 18 months).

And Paultons' marketing drive this year is exploiting Merlin's problems with overstretch (building a big Legoland in the flightpath of Iranian drones and missiles wasn't such a smart idea) and more world famous theme parks like Alton Towers perceive as struggling or stagnating in the past 10-15 years (while Paultons greatly improved).
 
TedShatner10 said:
Merlin's problems with overstretch (building a big Legoland in the flightpath of Iranian drones and missiles wasn't such a smart idea)
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Merlin didn't build LEGOLAND® Dubai. Dubai Parks and Resorts did. It was built entirely with third party capital, from the state. Merlin operates the park under a management contract, meaning they bear no financial risk whatsoever. It literally cannot be an example of overstretch.

Aside from the casual racism of treating the entire region as a perpetual warzone, the timeline also makes no sense. The park opened in 2016. Suggesting Merlin's current financial strategy is flawed because they didn't predict the geopolitical landscape of 2024 a decade ago is, ironically, an overstretch.
 
TedShatner10 said:
To be fair, until recent years well after COVID, I didn't realise Paultons Park had all the more broader themed areas rapidly expanding outside of the Peppa Pig area (but that national perception may be slowly shifting in the past 12 to 18 months).

And Paultons' marketing drive this year is exploiting Merlin's problems with overstretch (building a big Legoland in the flightpath of Iranian drones and missiles wasn't such a smart idea) and more world famous theme parks like Alton Towers perceive as struggling or stagnating in the past 10-15 years (while Paultons greatly improved).
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Outside of the enthusiast group I can hand on heart say where I live Paultons has no national recognition. Just doesn’t exist.

There is some idea there is a Peppa Pig theme park down south, but if you mention Paultons it’s blank faces all round.
 
Paultons could do with some TV advertising. I've heard radio ads but being an independent park they won't have the budget Merlin does. If you live north of Birmingham the park is a Trek so for those folks it's only an option if your staying in the area. Hopefully future on park accommodation will make it more of a viable option for those who live further away
 
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