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The Smiler - General Discussion

spinba11 said:
The smiler will never be back to it’s opening day standard, the crash has seen to that.
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What has the crash got to do with the standard of the ride? Is keeping it run down and worsening the guest experience meant as an indication of safety reassurance, or some kind of penance? It's just plain bad maintenance (and cheap design/build in the case of most the Smiler's theme)

Also removing audio to avoid any tabloid sensationalising has surely served its purpose now and should be put back?

I'm sure nobody really belives there's a connection between a sound effect saying "Half way corrected" and a breach of the H&S at Work Act. Or the line "welcome to eternal darkness" from Oblivion.

If people were really looking for offence, surely the fact the ride still operates would be more significant than a random line. A non-issue.
 
To give you one example, pre crash when the air gates closed it said time to get corrected, post crash nothing. Things like that.
 
TakeYourMedicine said:
Also removing audio to avoid any tabloid sensationalising has surely served its purpose now and should be put back?
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You would like to think so wouldn't you. The same goes for the videos on Oblvion which were edited. However as far as I am aware there is no prospect of these ever coming back. We live in a world where social media rules, and Towers are well aware that if these were brought back then it would be plastered all over social media by the many Towers/UK theme park fan sites that exist (inlcuding ours). That then makes it very easy for the tabloids to pick up on, contact Balch et al for their thoughts and run a damning story of just how insensitive the park are.

Don't you just love social media!
 
I guess that's true. But then that's an issue created by the park, they removed them for only the most tangential of 'bad taste' connotations and brought people's attention to them. Had those lines stayed there, nobody would notice, other than a few try hard reactionaries maybe which they did with other things anyway.

I optimistically like to think that as 'society' gets more used to social media's effects, people clock on to the fact most of it is all meaningless talk and that the worst putting the audio back can do is give some people inflated outrage online, create some angry tweets and not much more. People will still visit in big numbers and enjoy the ride, like they mostly returned to the park since the incident itself.

Towers mostly survived the crash, so I'm sure in reality they'll survive the line "welcome to eternal darkness" etc being in a video like it has been for 20 years. I wouldnt pander to social media but then Merlin perceive any tiny PR risk with great paranoia, since they are built on PR alone and not good guest experience.
 
They won't come back because they can't be bothered more than anything else. "Theme park plays audio" doesn't have any legs as a headline
 
Rob said:
You would like to think so wouldn't you. The same goes for the videos on Oblvion which were edited. However as far as I am aware there is no prospect of these ever coming back. We live in a world where social media rules, and Towers are well aware that if these were brought back then it would be plastered all over social media by the many Towers/UK theme park fan sites that exist (inlcuding ours). That then makes it very easy for the tabloids to pick up on, contact Balch et al for their thoughts and run a damning story of just how insensitive the park are.

Don't you just love social media!
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You have a point. Even the slightest thing would reignite the Daily Mirror's ire.....

Probably best to play safe. I mean, no rational person is too bothered "time to get corrected" has been removed, i didn't even notice.

But the Mirror's campaign has been far from rational - i'm sure they trawl through social media and would soon notice an enthusiast saying "It's been put back on!"
 
Should never have pandered to the media like that in the first place. Maybe there would've been some flack at the time but like everything it would soon blow over. Now they can't reinstate anything because it'll cause a media hysteria that they could've already dealt with years ago.
 
Would the average guest even notice things being reinstated? I'm not sure the media care much nowadays, it's probably old news to them.
 
Alsty said:
Should never have pandered to the media like that in the first place. Maybe there would've been some flack at the time but like everything it would soon blow over. Now they can't reinstate anything because it'll cause a media hysteria that they could've already dealt with years ago.
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They had too. If you remember the Daily Mirror was publishing stuff every day, and not just about The Smiler, every little thing that happened in the park, even lift hill stoppages was reported as "Terror at cursed theme park" or "New Alton Towers scare!"

And what's published in the Mirror is then Copied and pasted by other newspapers, and shared all over social media.

They had to quell that, and i think they've suceeded in part, but it won't take too much to fire it up again.

I hate the way the media works sometimes. i reallly do.
 
The media were hounding the park over all sorts of non-issues, I remember some of the drivel they were publishing... but that would've happened whatever the park did and knee-jerk reactions to remove anything that might cause someone offence isn't the right answer in my opinion. In due course people lose interest and the press simply move onto their next victim.
 
Mikw said:
Probably best to play safe. I mean, no rational person is too bothered "time to get corrected" has been removed, i didn't even notice.
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Yes but noticing its return isn't the point. It was one of the best moments of the ride's 'theme' before. Maybe you didn't notice it's removal but surely you remember the little moment of fun it added to keep the pace between the first and second half the ride.

But the point is more that the ride experience overall is very lacking now. It needs its full theme back, what little extra it had when it opened and ideally more.

The whole thing is just a little bit silly. No journalist would actually care when writing the headline, they're just doing it for the money. No sane person on the ride would take any issue with the line (or the music going back to its original volume which I believe also happened? Or is it just broken :p ) And any few professionally-outraged people who do react to such an article just needs something to complain about and will do so anyway.

Had it not been removed then the park would never have drawn any attention to it anyway. It's like they had a board meeting to come up with a quota of things to remove that may 'be offensive' around the park and ran out of ideas.

I understand they were losing guests but I can't believe taking away features of the rides achieved anything in real terms
 
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TakeYourMedicine said:
Yes but noticing its return isn't the point. It was one of the best moments of the ride's 'theme' before. Maybe you didn't notice it's removal but surely you remember the little moment of fun it added to keep the pace between the first and second half the ride.

But the point is more that the ride experience overall is very lacking now. It needs its full theme back, what little extra it had when it opened and ideally more.

The whole thing is just a little bit silly. No journalist would actually care when writing the headline, they're just doing it for the money. No sane person on the ride would take any issue with the line (or the music going back to its original volume which I believe also happened? Or is it just broken :p ) And any few professionally-outraged people who do react to such an article just needs something to complain about and will do so anyway.

Had it not been removed then the park would never have drawn any attention to it anyway. It's like they had a board meeting to come up with a quota of things to remove that may 'be offensive' around the park and ran out of ideas.

I understand they were losing guests but I can't believe taking away features of the rides achieved anything in real terms
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I would suggest that Tower's policy worked, much of the publicity has been more positive lately. They calmed down a media firestorm, one mistep could reignite that.

I love The Smiler, was lucky enough to ride it lost last year, including a few peak days when the effects were all working, so i expect it's money saving to not have them on very often. It could certainly do with a spruce up though, as could a lot of the other rides too.
 
Kraken27 said:
Towers have an established protocol with the emergency services. The emergency services will only treat a 999 call from Alton Towers as genuine if it is made from a set phone number (in Security Control). This is irrespective of whether it's for Ambulance, Fire or Police.
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You seem to speak from knowledge that specifically 999 (emergency calls), will only treat any incident from Towers as serious, if only it is verified from a specific phone number. That is complete bull!

What are your sources and why are you posting this?

999 cannot subjectively disregard any call and must take every call as true account and react accordingly regardless. However, I don't know that as fact or protocol, although it is common knowledge of the duties of 999 responders on the other end of the phone to treat every phone call as an emergency.
 
Given what some people call 999 for, I'd be tentative as a responder to send out something at the slightest call...

One would assume that if standard park guests took the time to call 999 (rather than film whatever incident was going on), then the responder would mark it as a potential incident and await official confirmation from the park, or even get in contact directly...
 
I have an addiction to daft spelling mistakes, and can't resist.
Who is Mr A Clean...does he work on the smiler.
Fresh pint...my God, they have put a bar in the smiler queue at last.
And I can only guess that the crown puller is either a hardline republican or dentist.
.
.
And back on topic, have they got round to levelling out the drains in the queueline and clearing them out, my last two visits to the smiler have resulted in very stinky trainers.
 
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