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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

Well, at least some animation and design companies are making a few easy quid out of 'em this past year. I don't like to be horrible for the sake of it, but it's obvious that there are even people on this very forum who could have made a better logo for Thorpe Park and designed a better marketing package for this new ride than what someone who is probably a marketing manager down there has overseen in recent times. I suppose it's money in the bank at the end of the month as well for them though, so who cares? It's just the theme park that suffers at the end of the day.
 
Bennobo said:
That is absolutely dreadful.

Why on earth didn't they go with a deadulus and Icarus theme. Call the coaster icarus. Call the area Olympus. Or anything greek related.

Greek ruin theming. Massively marketable, a back story that makes sense and is already written for them. So so painful
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The funny thing is, they actually originally filed a trademark for Icarus, which could infer that something like this was the original plan. The trademark got rejected because of a flat ride named Icarus at Twinlakes. This led to Hyperia being the name instead.

I’ve been quite a bit more accepting of the more explicit backstories in recent rides than most. I absolutely love what Merlin have done with Nemesis Reborn, and I like the more explicit backstory in The Curse at Alton Manor compared to the lack of one in Duel, so unlike some on here, I’m not exactly against the more in-depth and explicit backstories by any stretch.

With that being said, I have to say that I really don’t see the point of heavily promoting the “story” for Hyperia. If there was ever a ride where an in-depth backstory was pretty much redundant, I think this is it. The ride has next to no theming, and unlike many Merlin rides, it pretty much doesn’t appear to focus on theming or storytelling at all.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If I were Thorpe, I’d be ditching any major focus on the theme or story in marketing and just going all in on the coaster itself. Just hammer home that silhouette of the layout and its giant elements and hammer home the records, with only the very vague “find your fearless” imagery present as an indication of the theme/style. To be fair, I think they’ve done that pretty well up to this point, but the marketing seems to have taken a bit of a weird turn in the last couple of days.

Granted, I’m no marketing expert by any means, but the approach of the last couple of days is certainly not how I’d approach marketing Hyperia. The coaster itself is the key strength of this project, so why not play to your strengths? I fear that this sudden focus on the theme and “story” of Hyperia will only invite criticism regarding the very minimalistic nature of the actual ride theming.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
You mean like Hyperia?

HYPERIA (Hypereia) A Naiad-nymph daughter of the river Inachus.
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Let's be very honest here, there is literally no chance they are calling back to one of the Naiad's here.

Matt N said:
Granted, I’m no marketing expert by any means, but the approach of the last couple of days is certainly not how I’d approach marketing Hyperia. The coaster itself is the key strength of this project, so why not play to your strengths?
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I suppose that raises the question, now they've had a chance to ride the coaster, maybe they're concerned that the coaster is as strong as they'd hoped?
 
Matt N said:
The funny thing is, they actually originally filed a trademark for Icarus, which could infer that something like this was the original plan. The trademark got rejected because of a flat ride named Icarus at Twinlakes. This led to Hyperia being the name instead.

I’ve been quite a bit more accepting of the more explicit backstories in recent rides than most. I absolutely love what Merlin have done with Nemesis Reborn, and I like the more explicit backstory in The Curse at Alton Manor compared to the lack of one in Duel, so unlike some on here, I’m not exactly against the more in-depth and explicit backstories by any stretch.

With that being said, I have to say that I really don’t see the point of heavily promoting the “story” for Hyperia. If there was ever a ride where an in-depth backstory was pretty much redundant, I think this is it. The ride has next to no theming, and unlike many Merlin rides, it pretty much doesn’t appear to focus on theming or storytelling at all.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If I were Thorpe, I’d be ditching any major focus on the theme or story in marketing and just going all in on the coaster itself. Just hammer home that silhouette of the layout and its giant elements and hammer home the records, with only the very vague “find your fearless” imagery present as an indication of the theme/style. To be fair, I think they’ve done that pretty well up to this point, but the marketing seems to have taken a bit of a weird turn in the last couple of days.

Granted, I’m no marketing expert by any means, but the approach of the last couple of days is certainly not how I’d approach marketing Hyperia. The coaster itself is the key strength of this project, so why not play to your strengths? I fear that this sudden focus on the theme and “story” of Hyperia will only invite criticism regarding the very minimalistic nature of the actual ride theming.
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Good post
I get the feeling when it opens it has to be a brilliant ride now. With no theming at all and an odd marketing campaign it seems all their eggs are now in one basket. If it rides well then all that was previous will be forgotten, if it's average or bad it could be an underwhelming flop.
 
Squiggs said:
I suppose that raises the question, now they've had a chance to ride the coaster, maybe they're concerned that the coaster is as strong as they'd hoped?
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I’m not sure that’s necessarily it. The silhouette of the elements, the records and all the associated “killer imagery” of having a massive coaster would be exactly the same regardless of how it actually rode, and if I’m remembering correctly, the backstory was first revealed in the themed room before the ride had ever tested.

For clarity, I have never objected to this ride being more minimally themed. I think it’s pretty rare for a hyper coaster to be really heavily themed (even the hypers in heavily themed parks like Europa Park and PortAventura have relatively minimal theming), and a ride of that size and scale can really speak for itself. I actually really like the ethereal style and imagery and the whole “find your fearless” vibe they’re going for with the ride.

However, what I would say is that if they’re going to go for a minimally themed ride and focus on the coaster itself, I think they needed to go all in with that approach and stick to that in their marketing. I feel that this approach of heavily bigging up the “backstory” sets people up for the ride itself being heavily themed, which will only invite criticism of the more minimalistic nature of the actual theming when people get to see it.
 
Matt N said:
I’m not sure that’s necessarily it. The silhouette of the elements, the records and all the associated “killer imagery” of having a massive coaster would be exactly the same regardless of how it actually rode, and if I’m remembering correctly, the backstory was first revealed in the themed room before the ride had ever tested.

For clarity, I have never objected to this ride being more minimally themed. I think it’s pretty rare for a hyper coaster to be really heavily themed (even the hypers in heavily themed parks like Europa Park and PortAventura have relatively minimal theming), and a ride of that size and scale can really speak for itself. I actually really like the ethereal style and imagery and the whole “find your fearless” vibe they’re going for with the ride.

However, what I would say is that if they’re going to go for a minimally themed ride and focus on the coaster itself, I think they needed to go all in with that approach and stick to that in their marketing. I feel that this approach of heavily bigging up the “backstory” sets people up for the ride itself being heavily themed, which will only invite criticism of the more minimalistic nature of the actual theming when people get to see it.
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Whilst Shambhala isn't "Heavily" themed, it's not half bad in that department mind. It splashes down right in the middle of a fully themed Himalayan village and has theming from the archway to the entrance. It has more theming than your average Merlin coaster, let alone a hyper.

But I agree, I was never bothered about this being stylised rather than themed. I'm certainly not bothered by some crappy CGI "story" video that looks like it's running on an Amiga 32. Just an entrance sign, a colour scheme that doesn't resemble an ash tray, and a full layout will do.
 
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