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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

Bennobo said:
But it's not open today, it was never planned too, today is another day of testing. It's opening tommorow.
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I meant if I was on park today, having seen staff on it which shows it's safe to have riders on, and then an announcement saying it's reopening tomorrow I'd be a bit miffed.

I completely get that it was never stated to be open today (let's not forget though, technically it was supposed to be open ;)) but if it's been deemed safe that they can announce it will reopen tomorrow, why not open it today? What is different between today & tomorrow?
 
Josh said:
I meant if I was on park today, having seen staff on it which shows it's safe to have riders on, and then an announcement saying it's reopening tomorrow I'd be a bit miffed.

I completely get that it was never stated to be open today (let's not forget though, technically it was supposed to be open ;)) but if it's been deemed safe that they can announce it will reopen tomorrow, why not open it today? What is different between today & tomorrow?
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Sounds to me like whatever they do you would be pretty miffed.

The fact is you go to a park with the knowledge that any ride could be closed.
I queued for hours on opening day and if I got to the ride and it closed would I have been miffed - yes but would I understand - also yes
Thorpe would have lost a lot of money by the ride being closed they wouldn’t have wanted this situation so it would have been all about damage limitation and they would reopen as soon as possible.

They may have reduced staff levels whilst the ride has been shut to save cost and reopening it today might not have been possible as a result - unless you work in their operation you wouldn’t know all the facts


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BBC News - Thorpe Park to reopen UK's tallest rollercoaster
www.bbc.com

Hyperia: Thorpe Park to reopen UK's tallest rollercoaster

Hyperia will reopen on Wednesday after being closed for more than two weeks.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

"The theme park said the closure followed "standard technical pre-opening procedure checks", but has not given further details."

Worst ever press quote?? I'm sorry for whoever is the lovely girl they keep rolling out, but really Merlin. A £100k marketing specialist would have made this an Internet sensation - reason for downtime, work needed, on-track video, how safe it is, etc.

I am available. £120k
 
Smiley said:
I'm sorry for whoever is the lovely girl they keep rolling out, but really Merlin.
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As far as I'm aware "spokesperson" (the term used within the article) is gender neutral. I'm not sure what gave you an idea about the spokesperson's gender, but patronising ("lovely girl"?) them isn't a great look, or generally very polite, or really even acceptable.

I'm sure you wouldn't refer to Jack Silkstone (Thorpe's semi-official vlogger in tow) as a "lovely boy"; to use a gendered youth term to refer to an adult man is rude and patronising.

I would have expected a marketing specialist to realise this.
 
kris3012 said:
Sounds to me like whatever they do you would be pretty miffed.

The fact is you go to a park with the knowledge that any ride could be closed.
Click to expand...
kris3012 said:
I queued for hours on opening day and if I got to the ride and it closed would I have been miffed - yes but would I understand - also yes
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Then you are of the same opinion as me. Yes, I understand they didn't need to open it today. But also, why not? Would be good to give the ride a little running without it being completely hammered for an entire day.

If a ride closes during the day and the queue gets cleared, does a park usually keep it closed till tomorrow to try again then? No, they usually try everything to get it back open the same day.

I've already had my question answered by another poster anyway, they are setting up the extended queue and rehearsing the opening ceremony. Clearly they haven't opened it today so they can manage crowds from the off tomorrow and have a big "reopening" ceremony.
 
Smiley said:
BBC News - Thorpe Park to reopen UK's tallest rollercoaster
www.bbc.com

Hyperia: Thorpe Park to reopen UK's tallest rollercoaster

Hyperia will reopen on Wednesday after being closed for more than two weeks.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

"The theme park said the closure followed "standard technical pre-opening procedure checks", but has not given further details."

Worst ever press quote?? I'm sorry for whoever is the lovely girl they keep rolling out, but really Merlin. A £100k marketing specialist would have made this an Internet sensation - reason for downtime, work needed, on-track video, how safe it is, etc.

I am available. £120k
Click to expand...

They don't give further details on reasons as there is always someone who does the "its not safe what if the lift hill flange comes loose again!1!!" Better to be vague and factual, pre-opening checks found an issue and they have resolved it.
 
Josh said:
Then you are of the same opinion as me. Yes, I understand they didn't need to open it today. But also, why not? Would be good to give the ride a little running without it being completely hammered for an entire day.
Click to expand...
If the ride had opened today then it could have led to a surge of guests for it that the park might not have been prepared for. I think it’s better for the park to announce that it will open tomorrow and put in place the measures that they need to manage guests and crowd levels, as well as staffing levels so that the day can go ahead in a smooth and well run way.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
As far as I'm aware "spokesperson" (the term used within the article) is gender neutral. I'm not sure what gave you an idea about the spokesperson's gender, but patronising ("lovely girl"?) them isn't a great look, or generally very polite, or really even acceptable.

I'm sure you wouldn't refer to Jack Silkstone (Thorpe's semi-official vlogger in tow) as a "lovely boy"; to use a gendered youth term to refer to an adult man is rude and patronising.

I would have expected a marketing specialist to realise this.
Click to expand...
Well they've "rolled out" the same lovely girl (see above). Not sure why the lovely boy Jack Silkstone didn't do it... As a marketing specialist, I know plenty of things:
- the script is awful
- the person delivering said script has been chosen for marketing purposes
- the whole response has been a PR disaster

If you had wanted a proper marketing response, there would be video every day of the lift hill/work. Customers today want transparency, and TP failed on an Xperia level. They were gifted an amazing opportunity to educate about the complexities (and safety) of a roller coaster. And failed. Now £150k
 
So the ride queue line will close prior to advertised closing time to ensure no long waits or queueing after park close.

That sounds more like there is a concern about continuous 12hour operation like day one. But at least they are being upfront by saying the queue will close early.
 
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Interested to see how the queue times are this week. Can potentially get there after dropping my son at school and get back before he finishes if they're under 60 minutes for single rider....
 
Smiley said:
Well they've "rolled out" the same lovely girl (see above). Not sure why the lovely boy Jack Silkstone didn't do it... As a marketing specialist, I know plenty of things:
- the script is awful
- the person delivering said script has been chosen for marketing purposes
- the whole response has been a PR disaster

If you had wanted a proper marketing response, there would be video every day of the lift hill/work. Customers today want transparency, and TP failed on an Xperia level. They were gifted an amazing opportunity to educate about the complexities (and safety) of a roller coaster. And failed. Now £150k
Click to expand...
Transparency is good to a point, but I think this was one of those situations where transparency could have been problematic. If you explained in too much detail about what specific part of the lift hill was broken, how it might have broken, the process they were going through to fix it and what have you, then that could easily raise more questions than answers. If the park had publicly explained that a certain part was broken, then you would have had accusations of it not being safe and such, which you definitely don't want in a post-Smiler safety climate.

You also have the issue of roller coaster maintenance being far too complex to explain in a short-form video. If the park had tried to give a full, blow-by-blow explanation of what had gone wrong and such, then they might have risked people zoning out of all the technical jargon and only latching onto certain soundbites. Some people might easily have used these soundbites to provide ammunition for some argument that the coaster was unsafe or whatever, and the park definitely doesn't want this.

Yes, the approach of keeping reasonably shtum on the technical specifics might have led people to speculate and come up with baseless theories, but I think that's the lesser of two evils compared to potentially intimidating people with technical jargon and revealing too much. The speculation is just that; speculation. Whereas if the park had gone all technical and publicly explained in great depth what had gone wrong, then they might have risked worrying people and causing accusations unnecessarily. The good old saying of "what you don't know won't hurt you" comes to mind; there's only a certain amount that the general populace needs to know and cares about.

It's very, very rare for a park to publicly delve into technical specifics when a ride shuts. The only time I can think of that a park got marginally more technical is when Fury 325 closed last year, and that was probably only because the reason for the closure was very hard to hide, what with the giant crack in one of the supports being spotted by a member of the public in the first place!

With all things considered, I don't think Thorpe Park could have handled this situation much better, aside from a few minor things. I think the initial communication of the closure on the 25th was evidently poor, and the decision to keep putting out random dates that they couldn't meet was strange, but overall, I can't really complain about the level of communication we've received from Thorpe Park.
 
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