'Special' Meets

[smudge]

Further to one of the questions in the Team Q&A session, I wondered if there are/could be any plans to organize paid trips, to Alton Towers primarily.

I have noticed on theotherfurum they organize Exclusive Ride Time etc etc and would love to see something similar with TS. Not necessarily just ride-time, but maybe original ideas too. Maybe there could just be a gauge of interest to begin with?

I visit towers a lot, and as much as I have attended a meet with you guys ( which was awesome ) I usually go with my family as we all enjoy 'quality' time together. I am always on the look-out for meets I can attend with you guys, but as a family, we do like to do our own thing ( being the selfish gets we are :X ) so meets are not ideal for us all.

I'm a massive fan of the site, and by introducing 'Special Events' I think maybe you could broaden your meet audience.

A couple of ideas I can think of right now are below, but of course I'm sure there are many more.

• Behind-the-scenes tours/talks - even just one areas at a time rather than the whole park
• The Unexplored Towers - The history of areas, present and past
• Exclusive Ride Hire
• History Tours
• The Gardens and surrounding areas tour (I think BigAl mentioned this in a thread not so long ago)

Of course I appreciate this would take some planning, but any extra money 'taken' could go back into the community in other ways, or indeed into the next event.

Of course you may not even want to contemplate this, understandably, although I think this could interest a lot of people, not just enthusiasts. The teams relationship and knowledge regarding the resort could be utilized for the benefit of the community as a whole, and could even provide some income (not necessarily cash) to those willing to offer their services by sharing their wealth of knowledge.

It would be interesting to gauge an interest at least?

Of course, the site remains a massive success regardless of this 'thought', and all who are involved have done a fine job indeed.

Finally, just as an example, I always loved Alton Towers throughout my life, but it was when I typed "Alton Towers Behind the Scenes Tour" into my search engine, I found ATA. That, in-turn led me to TTF, then of course, on to TS. (I would have classed myself as 'the GP' before TTF too.) Maybe future fans will discover TS that way?

 

[Poisson]

theotherfurum they organize Exclusive Ride Time etc etc

That didn't go as planned I have heard........

Anyway, I dislike exclusive ride hire as an idea if it delays the public and we have been on them often enough. The only exception I can think of is a dark ride with lights on (Duel on TT@10 for example)

Behind-the-scenes tours/talks - even just one areas at a time rather than the whole park
The Unexplored Towers - The history of areas, present and past
History Tours
The Gardens and surrounding areas tour (I think BigAl mentioned this in a thread not so long ago)

All of this gets the thumbs up from me, as long as not too much hassle is caused

 

[smudge]

Anyway, I dislike exclusive ride hire as an idea if it delays the public and we have been on them often enough. The only exception I can think of is a dark ride with lights on (Duel on TT@10 for example)

The exclusive ride time is before or after the park is open to the public.

http://www.altontowers.com/conferences-and-events/exclusive-hire/theme-park/#RideHire

All of this gets the thumbs up from me, as long as not too much hassle is caused

Great to see others interested

 

[BigDave]

Will you charge for meets?
Team: No, we have no plans for it. Our ethos on creating the community was to be free and open, so everyone could take part. The park is an expensive day out, so we don’t want to add any additional costs on.

But what about special events, there are members who want to be with TS on meets but feel left out that we cant get extra treatment because of your stance on fees. Cant you do it once a year as a one-off?
Team: I don’t think we quite expected this response, its certainly something we will look at. We will have more information in the Guest Services topic soon.

What about the free things offered to TowersStreet?
Team: We intend on keeping them free as and when Alton Towers offer them to us, however at present there is a clamp down on these. But should they arrive, we promise we wont make anyone pay. We aren’t here for profit.

So yes if something is offered to us from the park, then yes I guess the team will jump at the idea of having some kind of special meet, but its unlikely that the team will arrange paid for meets in order to get these privileges. That said, I was looking into a ruins and gardens tour, so some kind of events like that might happen.

 

[Joel]

To save any bush beating, we're definitely investigating further what options are available to us when it comes to organising 'events' for the community.

Previously the idea had always been quickly muted for two reasons - firstly as we stated we always wanted to be an all-inclusive community without creating a tier of sort of "standard" and "premium" meets. Obviously any events we did get kindly offered, often by the personal generosity and kindness of staff and managers at the Resort, would always be passed on to you in the best possible way, and we'd always welcome any further of these sorts of events despite a clamp down by the Resort after complaints of "unfair" treatment of particular communities.

Secondly, I think its key to point out that comparing events from other sites is unfortunately slightly difficult because of the way that we choose to run out site compared to others. Our site is non-profit, and run as a result of voluntary efforts from the team and its members, as an informal organisation, or community. The only revenue made is from the adverts shown on site, which little earnings are plowed back into the server costs and any purchases made for features or addons for the site (such as the alerts system).

Another site that I can think of is owned and run more like a business enterprise, and also has the direct financial backing of a private company to fund its running costs, and ultimately any events also.

Whilst we've not attempted to arrange or consider the costs of organising official events in partnership with the Resort for some time, we were aware that previously (that is, we've not asked recently, so we're referring to historic information) the Resort charges a lot of money for perks/benefits/events to be run for external resources, and as such we could be easily looking at prices of £1000+ for some simple ERT and maybe access to other events.

We admit we've not been in touch with the Resort to check if this is still true, because our initial information detracted us from pursuing that option any further than the quotes we were offered for various events.

So effectively for a meet of around ~50 people, we'd be looking at a fee of around £20 just to recoup costs for such events, and I think judging from other sites that are still looking to shift tickets at a cheaper (and probably subsidised) cost a few days before an event gives us little confidence that we'd see such an event go ahead successful.

Of course other communities make it successful by potentially subsidising and absorbing costs through business in order to attract customers to that business.

So in short, we'd likely (although we are researching further) see high costs for little benefit with no other financial backing and a larger risk of the event failing - you can see why there was reluctance to do it!

But that said, we have promised to engage the Resort once again and see what we can do and the costs involved as they may have changed, and we'll report back what we find. We're also publishing a survey (with a further in-depth meetup related survey after) which will gauge feedback about meets from our users so far, so we'll look to see what the results are from this also.

tl;dr - It really is a great idea, and we'd love to do it after feedback from users, but hopefully you better understand why it's not really been an option for us, and we'll gladly look into it again to see if it is viable.

 

[Dave]

Just to add something to Joel's comments, you may have noticed a lack of any group getting Behind the Scenes tours on resort this season, at the moment the resort do not offer BtS as an option. Obviously this has been the case in the past and they changed their minds so it's not an eternal no but at the moment the chances of BtS are slim.

 

[Jordan]

I don't see the value in paying for Exclusive Ride Time for rides we've all been on so many times before.

On the other hand, things like the behind-the-scenes tour at TTTS@10 are unique, interesting, and very much tailored to us, and I don't mind paying a little bit towards the cost of those taking place.

What we shouldn't do is to rush blindly in the footsteps of other fansites. I'd like to think this isn't the sort of community of people who would want to pay above the odds for 7 or 8 rides on Nemesis after the park closes. I'd much prefer we had a very unique and special extra every once in a blue moon than frequent, arbitrary and pricey perks for the sake of it.

 

[DiogoJ42]

Am I right in thinking that even if you get ERT, the H&S jobsworths would still not allow you to stay on the train, and make you walk the long way round? If that is the case, then its utterly pointless paying for it.

 

[BigDave]

Yeah you normally have to either get off or at the very least wait for so long before they would dispatch you again.

 

[alee298]

Yeah you normally have to either get off or at the very least wait for so long before they would dispatch you again.

How times have changed, in 2009 fright night last ride of the day. Nemesis inferno went round 4 times, non stop. Brilliant. But there isn't much point paying for ERT when we all have ridden them many, many times. A tour of the gardens ECT would be great though

 

[smudge]

Thanks for all your responses guys, of course all of the problems with this sort of thing are understandable.

I'm not sure it was clear in my first post, but I was hoping for something other than Exclusive time, as above, we would not necessarily benefit from paying over the odds for a few re-rides on nemesis, for example.

It's great that you are enquiring though about the other possibilities.

On a side note, why is towers so different to TP regarding re-rides. Summer nights this year, I re rode everything several in a row, and apart from stealth (where we walked along the platform and got back on the same train) we didn't even get out our seat, whereas towers will not do this on anything apart from 13 on very rare occasions when they need to fill the train?

 

[BigDave]

Different health and safety team. The park has for as long as I can remember had a strict "no re-ride" rule. They did use to allow you to just stay seated, but that too has changed a few times. Its normally caused by someone from the general public making a complaint and I think the later was due to a ride host sending a ride again without opening the harnesses and a guy wanted to get off. Im not sure on that though so don't quote me.

 

[Poisson]

Re-rides do occur, sort of.....RMT is known for additional laps (6 is the longest I've had) but there is a no re-ride policy

 

[Sam]

What on earth is the point of paid ERT on something you've already been on a hundred times before?

Try Forbidden Valley during Scarefest after about 7pm, you can pretty much get free ERT.

 

[IanB]

I am going to start of by thanking the team for the great job they do.

I think Exclusive Ride Time is a waste at Alton Towers. We have all been there often enough, that paying for an hours ride time without having to queue is not worth it.

Behind the Scenes tours are something I would love to see, but understand the difficulties involved in arranging this. If there was a cost involved, I think a Pay What You Can Afford approach would be good, so those with less spare income can still attend.

One of the things that I used to enjoy about the meets most was stopping over at the park hotels, so if it was possible to get a reduced rate on the rooms that would be fantastic perk. I am thinking somewhere in the region of £35pp when 4 people share. They could even allocate the rooms in ATH that are next to the Sky Walk, as these rooms must have some of the highest complaint rates.

Ian

 

[Vik]

It's a difficult one to evaluate really.

No need for anything like ERT because that can be done anyway for free for the vast majority of people. Not really a fan really of paid extras, mainly because it will exclude those who don't have the disposable income, or worse maybe pushing them in to paying for something that can't be afforded. But on the other hand, on weekend meets, possibly some planned evening events off park would be good, such as Bowling, cinema etc? There are often meals, but other activities would be good, especially as after park now people tend to be very fragmented, staying in various places and the opportunity to socialise in a more relaxed environment is very limited.

However I do think there needs to be changes to the way meets are operated. Main one being there should be one or two people who are official meet up organisers, who can offer information and advice on the meet up forums for upcoming events. I mention this because in the Scarefest meet topic, there were quite a lot of questions being asked and information being requested, many from first time meet up attendees, and nobody was answering them. This kind of came across as rather poor really, though obviously not intentional.

If there were a couple of people designated to sorting and organising meet ups, then at least there is a port of call should anyone need any information or advice. Also will have some responsibility for organising the meetups and evening events I suggested above; Maybe also liaising with Hotels, not just on resort, but also off resort, to ask about the possibility of any group discounts which can be obtained via using a discount code and thus allowing individual room bookings as opposed to the need to make one large group booking( I like Ians suggestion about the potential to ask for a reduced rate). That would hopefully encourage people to stay at the same place and socialise in the evening time. Something which has been getting less and less of late.

 

[smudge]

Not really a fan really of paid extras, mainly because it will exclude those who don't have the disposable income, or worse maybe pushing them in to paying for something that can't be afforded.

As much as I agree with your general point Vik, I do disagree with the quoted.

AT / theme parks are an extravagance. People would not be visiting in the first place if they did not have disposable income. Most on here have MAP's or similar I imagine, which is a significant amount of money for someone who can't afford £10-20 pounds on an event, ( or just a single ticket for that matter. ) For people 'on-the-breadline' - visits to AT would be out of the question regardless of any extra's. £10-20 anyway, I'm sure most spend that in the tavern alone

*Looks in the direction of JoshT* (only from what I've heard)

...or maybe just lay off buying GTA V (or a McDonalds lunch) for a week if you wish to attend an event that interests you.

All I'm saying is that if someone who frequents AT cant spare £10-20 for a special event (that would be of unparalleled interest to them) maybe they need to look closely at their lifestyle choices.

Any 'paid extra' would still be optional of course. I would very much doubt, and would hate to see, 'normal, free' meets pushed aside for any 'paid extras meets' - this would/could be an entirely different entity.

 

[Lottie.]

I can see your point smudge but surely those who are on low income, such as myself, visiting Alton Towers is a treat. I can certainly choose not to visit theme parks and save money as my income isn't a lot, yes that is true, but then if I did that then I would miss the social side of the meets, which in my honest opinion outweighs all the 'paid extras' that can certainly be offered/provided. The meets to me is all about socialising with other members and having a great time. Not to say that I don't like the idea of special extras such as BTS tours etc. but I'd much rather have free meets where I don't have to worry about forking out an extra £10/20 for a special extra where I can use that towards petrol or for food on park.

I will say that what the TS team have given us as extras, such as the Q+A last weekend and the extreme run-through of Sanctuary last Scarefest meet were fantastic and I thank the team greatly for these. But as some others have said, I do fear that this would segregate the group. Maybe it won't. I don't really know. I would be interested but I wouldn't want to fork out extra on what is an expensive trip in itself for me to travel to Towers.

 

[BigDave]

The Q&A that Dave organised last weekend was a perfect example of a good extra treat. It was open to everyone and was free. It made my weekend, which had been rather poor up until that point and everyone enjoyed it.

Free. Open to everyone. Something unique. That is how any little extras should be done, not something that will cost money and be for a select few.

 

[smudge]

I agree wholly with what you are saying Lottie, although is this meet was 'billed' as chargeable, then you would not attend and no-one would be missing out on any other meets either.

I have also been on low income before and, like you, still chose to spend my disposable income on AT, although if I knew a particular meet or trip was chargeable, I would calculate if I could afford it before attending.

IF TS decide this is a good idea, then of course the normal meets would be unaffected.

The Q&A that Dave organised last weekend was a perfect example of a good extra treat. It was open to everyone and was free. It made my weekend, which had been rather poor up until that point and everyone enjoyed it.

Free. Open to everyone. Something unique. That is how any little extras should be done, not something that will cost money and be for a select few.

The whole point of this topic was to gauge interest, not organize anything.

Of course anything free is even better! Although I don't think I'm alone in being interested in a tour of some kind or something similar. I VERY much doubt something like that would be done for 'free.'

This is not meant to undermine the Q&A session AT ALL either.