Pay per ride...the great debate.

[rob666]

OK, so here we are, in the Tavern, or Crevettes, tomorrow, in the sun...
"Pay per ride was loads better, never a long queue, spent up in a couple of hours because...no queues. Back on the prom, beach or piers in the fun and sun for the rest of the day, instead of being stuck in hour long queues all day."

Once pay one price and/or wristbands came in, queues doubled overnight.
Happened locally at all the north western seaside parks, "We have all your money, now get in that queue."
Even Disney used to do it, until they realised they could make more money out of costly entry and then paid queuejumping on top.
Now you have to learn and plan your day out, it used to be so much easier, throw money, take your seat.
Even easier now with contactless payments.

I searched for a discussion topic on this ever repeated debate, but there wasn't one.
Queues were much shorter, and faster running, fifty years ago.
Where is the progress?

 

[DiogoJ42]

A lot of non-geeks I speak to seem to be under the impression that parks now charge for both entry and per ride, thanks to fastrack.

 

[rob666]

The non geeks are correct.

 

[karenstreet]

I remember breezing through rides back in the pay-per-ride days too, felt like you got more actual fun out of the day. Now it’s all queuing strategy and app juggling.

 

[shakey]

At last , the thread we have all been waiting for.

I will start by saying that PPR is in some ways bad for the punter. @rob666 will be the first to admit that with his Blackpool season pass he can easily get to a point where each ride has cost about 20p. About the same cost as he would have been paying per ride in 1978.

BUT.......
As far as a seaside park is concerned a casual visitor (of which there are potentially many) that wants to turn up and do 2 or 3 rides in a town that has many other attractions apart from an amusement park, the PPR option is a valid one, especially if the price per ride is reasonable.

If we are talking about Alton Towers then on the face of it you would have thought POP would be the much better option for the park and for the punters, but towers has hotels, a water park, gardens and walks, so an option to go in the park and just pay for a couple of rides may not actually be a bad thing. But in reality I don't think we will ever see PPR at inland parks so this debate is pretty much about seaside parks.

So let's take Blackpool as that's the biggest seaside park in the country. You only have to go through the parks accounts over the last 40 years to see that when they moved to all day wristbands they started to lose money, and when they scrapped free entry they lost more money, and now they have scrapped the walk round pass they are losing even more.

POP has also caused the ride line up to be decimated over the years, and park operations have also suffered to the point where they regularly run rides on reduced capacity or close them altogether for the slightest of excuses. And the opening hours are being cut almost every year.

What is needed is a hybrid system. Have a £10 entry fee and then pay per ride when you get in , but at reasonable prices. So maybe £5 for Icon / big one, dropping down to £2 for kids rides. They could keep the POP option as well for people that want to be able to stay and ride all day.

 

[flyingguitar]

I think one key problem for BPB is that the park has been designed for PPR for so long, only recently has it changed and they didn't change enough of the park to fit the new POP model.

POP requires more through put across all rides, as people will spread out between them depending on if they like the look of it but with PPR you can charge more for rides with lower throughput to limit demand. In addition they have very expensive rides, when you could make £40 per 20 people train that left the station it is not that difficult to justify the cost of running, insuring or maintaining old rides if people kept riding them, but due to the entry prices it limits the number of people entering (if you had a spare couple of quid after going to the beach you could easily justify going on the big one, but now it is too expensive)

 

[rob666]

You could never justify a couple of quid on the Big One...
It was four quid when it opened!

 

[shakey]

You could never justify a couple of quid on the Big One...
It was four quid when it opened!

I think that is the problem they would have re-introducing a PPR option. They would probably set the big one and icon at something like £12 which wouldn't really entice anyone.

If they charged £10 entry then £5 max for rides you would be able to go in and do three rides for cheaper than a day ticket, and i think you would need to be able to do at least 3 or 4 rides on PPR for less than a day ticket for it to make any sense for the punter.

 

[flyingguitar]

What is needed is a hybrid system. Have a £10 entry fee and then pay per ride when you get in , but at reasonable prices. So maybe £5 for Icon / big one, dropping down to £2 for kids rides. They could keep the POP option as well for people that want to be able to stay and ride all day.

If they charged £10 entry then £5 max for rides you would be able to go in and do three rides for cheaper than a day ticket, and i think you would need to be able to do at least 3 or 4 rides on PPR for less than a day ticket for it to make any sense for the punter.

I would probably have it so a ticket is required for entry, but the ticket is ride vouchers.

so you may pay £10 per 3 people to enter, but you get 3 dark ride tickets or something, meaning you can keep the payed area, but it is much cheaper, and you feel like you aren't paying to stand in a theme park

 

[Bowser]

Winter Wonderland has pay per ride on top of pay entry and the queues are so bad they still have a fast track option!

I think there’s a degree of rose tinted spectacles. Queues may have generally been shorter but safety was poor due to unrestricted entry and different operational priorities.

You need quite specific circumstances in terms of economics, demographics, operations and ride types for it to work now. Times have changed and it’s subjective if you think for better or worse.

 

[shakey]

I would probably have it so a ticket is required for entry, but the ticket is ride vouchers.

so you may pay £10 per 3 people to enter, but you get 3 dark ride tickets or something, meaning you can keep the payed area, but it is much cheaper, and you feel like you aren't paying to stand in a theme park

Great Yarmouth have a similar system to this. A £5 fun card gets you entry to the park and it also gets you £5 in ride tokens , the big thing here though is their most expensive ride is £5 (Their signature rollercoaster), everything else is £4, £3 or £2.

By contrast, when the pleasure beach last had the walk round pass in 2019, the price was £10 to get in (with no ride tokens). The children's coaster Blue Flyer cost £5 to ride and I believe Icon was £15. Those sort of prices are not going to get many takers when its currently £30 to ride all day on anything you want. So if pleasure beach were to reintroduce a PPR option they would need to significantly reduce the ride prices or it would be doomed to fail.

 

[rob666]

Winter Wonderland has pay per ride on top of pay entry and the queues are so bad they still have a fast track option!

I think there’s a degree of rose tinted spectacles. Queues may have generally been shorter but safety was poor due to unrestricted entry and different operational priorities.

You need quite specific circumstances in terms of economics, demographics, operations and ride types for it to work now. Times have changed and it’s subjective if you think for better or worse.

Winter Wonderland is a double exception...capital city, and temporary.

Still have paid entry, that is fine, keep out the lowlife, but then price rides at a reasonable rate that generates custom.
It was working fine until some parks "went POP", and others felt obliged to follow, to some degree.
Then operations generally took a dive.
One train ops in busy times and all that.

And you got the maze, train, river caves, dancing fountains and a sniff round bradley's beaver in the learning garden for your tenner shakey.

 

[shakey]

And you got the maze, train, river caves, dancing fountains and a sniff round bradley's beaver in the learning garden for your tenner shakey.

Yes , true , i forgot about that.

The individual ride prices were far too high to tempt many people to use the ride tokens though .

Bring back the A,B,C and D ticket sheets !!

 

[flyingguitar]

Great Yarmouth have a similar system to this. A £5 fun card gets you entry to the park and it also gets you £5 in ride tokens , the big thing here though is their most expensive ride is £5 (Their signature rollercoaster), everything else is £4, £3 or £2.

By contrast, when the pleasure beach last had the walk round pass in 2019, the price was £10 to get in (with no ride tokens). The children's coaster Blue Flyer cost £5 to ride and I believe Icon was £15. Those sort of prices are not going to get many takers when its currently £30 to ride all day on anything you want. So if pleasure beach were to reintroduce a PPR option they would need to significantly reduce the ride prices or it would be doomed to fail.

£15 for a ride is insanely expensive, I don't know who would buy that, £5 for the big one and icon is probably what I would put my limit as the most I would be willing to spend (it is still a bit expensive IMO). (They would probably still make an insane amount of money if they didn't have sand bags one train on PMBO is worth £300, with 1.5min dispatches 2 trains they could make £12,000 per hour that is an insane amount of money, it would probably generate more in one day alone than the park dose currently)

 

[shakey]

£15 for a ride is insanely expensive, I don't know who would buy that, £5 for the big one and icon is probably what I would put my limit as the most I would be willing to spend (it is still a bit expensive IMO). (They would probably still make an insane amount of money if they didn't have sand bags one train on PMBO is worth £300, with 1.5min dispatches 2 trains they could make £12,000 per hour that is an insane amount of money, it would probably generate more in one day alone than the park dose currently)

The star flyer that was in front of the tower at Christmas was £7.50 to ride two years ago. And there was a queue for it. No entry fee to pay there though.

I think if pleasure beach had free entry it could possibly charge £8 to £10 for the big one, but if they are charging £10 to get in then £5 is about right for the big one or Icon

 

[Bowser]

£15 for a ride is insanely expensive, I don't know who would buy that

I paid £20 for a Hyperia fast track and there were plenty of people in that line, you’d be surprised.

Pretty sure Munich Looping was £12 a ride.

 

[rob666]

Tenner for Big One, the flume shed and Icon, fiver for the other coasters, three quid the rest.
Fiver entry, free soft drink and arcade voucher.

And please, this is very skint Blackpool, not posh London prices!

 

[Benzin]

Big One was £8 a ride on my first few visits.

On the other hand, having a pay-per-ride can put people like myself off going on other things to fill the time up. Vienna Prater has LOADS of side attractions and I did only the tall and (at the time) very cold Starflyer because cost would start spiralling. If they had a wristband alternative would've ridden so much that day.

Alas, saved up for 2 goes on Olympia Looping instead.

Pay-per-ride would only work well at certain places that allow people to mingle and enjoy atmosphere. Entry barrier for Blackpool probably more a necessity nowadays.

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

£15 for a ride is insanely expensive, I don't know who would buy that, £5 for the big one and icon is probably what I would put my limit as the most I would be willing to spend (it is still a bit expensive IMO). (They would probably still make an insane amount of money if they didn't have sand bags one train on PMBO is worth £300, with 1.5min dispatches 2 trains they could make £12,000 per hour that is an insane amount of money, it would probably generate more in one day alone than the park dose currently)

A peak ticket for entry to Alton Towers in 1994 was £14.00. @rob666 mentioned that when The Big One opened, also in 1994, a ride cost £4.00.

Adjusting both for inflation: an Alton Towers ticket was the 2025 equivalent of £29.00. The Big One was roughly £8.29.

Conversely, when Icon opened in 2018 it was £15.00 per ride, which is the equivalent of 1994's £9.27 and 2025's £19.21.

Pay One Price has slightly warped your expectations as to what is, and isn't acceptable for a single experience price.

Turbo Coaster, on Brighton Pier, is £6.00 a throw. £5.00 is way too cheap for a permanent custom coaster.

 

[rob666]

The Big Dipper at Blackpool today.
"Opens" at 12.
Allegedly.
It didn't actually admit punters until around 1.
It then got an instant queue of around an hour, on a one train service.

In the school holidays, on a sunny day.

Would not have happened before POP.